Over lunch between shootaround and Game 3 of the D-League Finals on Thursday, Raptors 905 head coach Jerry Stackhouse made a prediction to his wife.

“Bruno’s gonna have a good game today,” he said.

Stackhouse’s words proved prescient. The 905 defeated the Rio Grande Valley Vipers 122-96 on Thursday to become the 2017 D-League Champions, an enormous accomplishment in Stackhouse’s rookie season behind the bench and just the team’s second year overall. At the centre of it all was the object of Stackhouse’s hunch and the game’s leading scorer, Bruno.

Bruno, of course, is Bruno Caboclo, the young, spindly Brazilian the Toronto Raptors made the No. 20 pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. When the Raptors drafted Caboclo, the 905 did not exist. Caboclo’s freshman season essentially amounted to a redshirt year with a few brief expeditions to Fort Wayne, where, at 19 and short on support, companionship, and grasp of the English language, Caboclo would quietly...

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